Israel Lottery draws same numbers twice in month

JERUSALEM — The odds may have been in the trillions-to-one range, but lightning has indeed struck twice for some lucky lottery players in Israel.

The national bi-weekly lottery draw Saturday led to the astronomically improbable result of the same six double-digit balls being pulled in less than a month.

The Miphal HaPayis state game picked 36, 33, 32, 26, 14, 13 and the "strong number" 2 as the winning combination.

But a quick look at the results caused panic and amazement: the same first six numbers had been picked in exact reverse order and won the lottery on September 21. The only difference was the "strong number," which determines the first prize jackpot.

Anyone who played those six numbers on both dates won big — twice.

Lottery officials at first pulled Saturday's result, fearing there was a mechanical error or some sort of tampering with the results.

That's understandable as the statistical probability of that six-number combination is normally one-in-2.65 million. But a gaming and mathematics expert interviewed by Israeli website Ynetnews set the chances that the same numbers would hit twice somewhere around four trillion to one.

"Usually, this is the type of numbers they use to describe the probability of life on Mars," Zvi Gilula, a professor of statistics at the Hebrew University said.

But after investigating the drawing and finding no problems, lottery officials certified Saturday's results, leading to three first-prize winners earning over $1 million dollars each.

The lottery's official website cited a statistician explaining, "this is a rare coincidence of identical results in two different lotteries."

According to Haim Melamed, "Combinations of such statistics, despite being rare, can occur and hence, a combination that already occurred in the lottery (can) have a chance to rise again ... like every other combination."

(Click to display full-size in gallery)A woman buys a lottery ticket from a special kiosk in central Jerusalem on Sunday.

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This statement in the above article: "The lottery's official website cited a statistician explaining, "this is a rare coincidence of identical results in two different lotteries." is misleading, because it happened in the same lottery ... not in "two different ones". I think maybe the writer should have said in '2 different draws' instead.

To the best of my knowledge this is the first time numbers in any lottery have repeated, but for a few years now I have not been following lotto things as close as I once used to ... so the question is: has this ever happened before? ... in any lottery?

This statement in the above article: "The lottery's official website cited a statistician explaining, "this is a rare coincidence of identical results in two different lotteries." is misleading, because it happened in the same lottery ... not in "two different ones". I think maybe the writer should have said in '2 different draws' instead.

To the best of my knowledge this is the first time numbers in any lottery have repeated, but for a few years now I have not been following lotto things as close as I once used to ... so the question is: has this ever happened before? ... in any lottery?

and the odds of any previous combination been drawn again is the same as any other combo being drawn; 265 million to 1.

This statement in the above article: "The lottery's official website cited a statistician explaining, "this is a rare coincidence of identical results in two different lotteries." is misleading, because it happened in the same lottery ... not in "two different ones". I think maybe the writer should have said in '2 different draws' instead.

To the best of my knowledge this is the first time numbers in any lottery have repeated, but for a few years now I have not been following lotto things as close as I once used to ... so the question is: has this ever happened before? ... in any lottery?

This statement in the above article: "The lottery's official website cited a statistician explaining, "this is a rare coincidence of identical results in two different lotteries." is misleading, because it happened in the same lottery ... not in "two different ones". I think maybe the writer should have said in '2 different draws' instead.

To the best of my knowledge this is the first time numbers in any lottery have repeated, but for a few years now I have not been following lotto things as close as I once used to ... so the question is: has this ever happened before? ... in any lottery?

Happens with some regularity for p5 games, but here is another p6 repeater from the BG lotto

and the odds of any previous combination been drawn again is the same as any other combo being drawn; 265 million to 1.

Stack47,

I noticed that error in the article too. The first expert they interviewed was wrong, the second one was correct. The odds are NOT in the trillions to one UNLESS the Event is, "The odds of drawing [N1, N2, N3, N4, N5, N6] TOMORROW AND THE NEXT DAY!" If the question is what are the odds of drawing TOMORROW, the set that was ALREADY DRAWN TODAY, the answer is as you stated above. (I assume you meant 2.65 - their "White Balls" are based on a 6/37 matrix.)

This happened last year in Bulgaria, for two draws in a row (can't post a link as I'm too 'new' and just got told off for trying! - Googling repeat lottery numbers bulgaria should find it). Two consecutive draws is of course even more unlikely, yet still not significant.

It does freak people out though when this happens, but they forget that if this kind of thing could NOT happen then that's when they should worry about there being something wrong with the draw.

I'm still looking forward to the day 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 gets drawn somewhere - that'll really upset a lot of people who insist such combinations are impossible :-)

This happened last year in Bulgaria, for two draws in a row (can't post a link as I'm too 'new' and just got told off for trying! - Googling repeat lottery numbers bulgaria should find it). Two consecutive draws is of course even more unlikely, yet still not significant.

It does freak people out though when this happens, but they forget that if this kind of thing could NOT happen then that's when they should worry about there being something wrong with the draw.

I'm still looking forward to the day 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 gets drawn somewhere - that'll really upset a lot of people who insist such combinations are impossible :-)

Mark Haigh,

"I'm still looking forward to the day 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 gets drawn somewhere - that'll really upset a lot of people who insist such combinations are impossible :-)"